EDA Entrepreneurs: Build To Enjoy

By _One Million by One Million Blog

September 29, 2010

I know I have a lot of readers from the EDA industry. Once a hotbed of innovation, entrepreneurship, and wealth creation, it is an industry that is now moribund. VCs and angel investors have all but abandoned the industry, and those private companies that exist find it difficult to create lucrative exits, a phenomenon that further turns off investors.

This post, however, is a look at the opportunities that exist within this ecosystem and against this general backdrop.

The fundamental problem with EDA is that the product opportunities have very small TAMs (total available markets) which do not really fit the venture model. Even with $50 million–$100 million TAM business opportunities, venture capital is just not the right way to finance these businesses. Angel capital is okay as long as the exit market is active enough to provide liquidity. However, that has not been the case of late, so the funnel has simply choked up.

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